


hush (i know they said the end is near)

by ofthelabyrinth



Series: doraelin rewrites [2]
Category: Throne of Glass Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Canon Rewrite, Character Death, F/F, Sad Ending, rewrite of the lock scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:15:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26500498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofthelabyrinth/pseuds/ofthelabyrinth
Summary: It was so tempting, every thought she had ever had of their future tried to climb up to the surface of her consciousness––or maybe his? They were starting to blend together as if they were two sides of the same coin, and their metal was finally being welded together.An archway lingered behind them. An archway that would smell of pine and snow and hopes and dreams and ideas and love.
Relationships: Aelin Ashryver Galathynius | Celaena Sardothien & Dorian Havilliard, Aelin Ashryver Galathynius | Celaena Sardothien/Dorian Havilliard
Series: doraelin rewrites [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1926646
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3





	hush (i know they said the end is near)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [doraelin nation](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=doraelin+nation).



As it had been once before, so it was again.

As Aelin had been before, so she was again.

As Dorian had been once before, so he was again.

The beginning and end and eternity, a torrent of light, of life that flowed between Dorian and Aelin, two halves of a cleaved bloodline.

Mist swirled, veiling the solid ground beneath. An illusion, perhaps—to ease their thoughts and minds away from their task, to dissuade them from their noble purpose. A place that was not a place, in a chamber of many doors, many possibilities, many realities. More doors—more worlds than they could ever hope to count. Some made of air, some of Adarlan glass, some of flame and gold and ice and silver.

Each door contained a new world that was beckoning. Beckoning them to join a reality where things were different, where they could be more, both together and as individuals.

But they remained there, in the crossroads of all things. Stagnant, knowing only what was in front of them. Knowing only each other.

In bodies that were not their bodies, they stood amid all those doorways, their power pouring out, pooling before them. Blending and merging, fitting together seamlessly, as it always did, into a ball of ice and fire and pure magic, of creation, hovering in midair. Every ember of magic that flowed from them into the growing sphere before them would not return into the Lock taking form. It would not replenish.

A well running dry. Forever.

More and more and more, ripping from them with each breath. Creation and destruction.

The sphere of their shared identity swirled, its edges warping, shrinking. Forming into the shape they’d chosen, a thing of gold and silver and glass and ivory. A thing of kings and queens and destiny. The Lock that would seal all these infinite doors forever.

Still, they gave over their power, yet the forming of the Lock demanded more.

And it began to hurt.

She was Aelin, and yet she was not.

She was Aelin, and yet she was infinite; she was all worlds, she was—

She was  _ Aelin. _

_ She was Aelin. _

And he, he was Dorian.

And by letting the keys into her, they had entered the true Wyrdgate. A step, a thought, or a wish would allow them to access any world they desired. Any possibility. It was so tempting, every thought she had ever had of their future tried to climb up to the surface of her consciousness—or maybe his? They were starting to blend together as if they were two sides of the same coin, and their metal was finally being welded together.

An archway lingered behind them. An archway that would smell of pine and snow and hopes and dreams and ideas and  _ love _ .

Slowly, the Lock formed, the light turning to metal—to royal gold and godly silver.

Dorian was panting, his jaw stretched tight as he struggled to bear the weight of the pain they shared, as they gave and gave and gave their power toward it. Never to see or feel it again.

It was agony. Agony like nothing she had known.

~~ She wondered if it would hurt less without him. Without the likelihood of his death. ~~

She was Aelin. She was Aelin and not the things that she’d set in her arm, not this place that existed beyond reason. She was Aelin; she was Aelin; and she had come here to do something, had come here promising to do something—

She fought her rising scream as her power rippled away, like peeling skin from her bones. Precisely how Cairn had done it, delighted in it. She had outlasted him, though. Had escaped Maeve’s clutches. She had survived them both. To do this. To come here.

But she had been wrong.

She couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t stomach it, this loss and pain and growing madness as a new truth became clear:

They would not leave this place. She would not leave this place.  _ He  _ would not leave this place. They would have nothing left anyway. They would dissolve, mist to float into the fog around them. They would be separated, dragged to the north and south by winds determined to never let them reunite. She would not accept that fate.

It was agony like Dorian had never known. His very self, unraveled thread by thread.

The shape of the Lock, Elena had told Aelin, did not matter. It could have been a bird or a sword or a flower for all this place, this gate, cared. But their minds, what was left of them as they frayed, chose the shape they knew, the one that made the most sense—the Eye of Elena, born again—the Lock once more. 

The Eye of Elena, recreated by Elena and Gavin’s mirrors. Recreated by the two newborn gods. Even with the bone-deep torment, Dorian had to appreciate the irony. Gods were supposed to be immortal.

Aelin began screaming. Screaming and screaming.

His magic ripped away from that sacred, perfect place inside him. Inside  _ them. _

It would kill them to forge it. It’d kill them both. They had come here out of the desperate hope they’d both leave. Or did they? Dorian did not know anymore. 

_ Maybe, _ a tiny piece of his mind declared,  _ Maybe you knew this would be how it ended. And didn’t want to live without her. And she without you. _

And if they did not halt, if they did not stop this, neither would survive.

He tried to move his head. Tried to tell her. Stop. Even if the words came out, he knew they wouldn’t change anything.

His magic tore out of him, the Lock drinking it down, a force not to be leashed. An insatiable hunger that devoured them.

Stop. He tried to speak. Tried to pull back.

Aelin was sobbing now—sobbing through her teeth.

Soon. Soon now, the Lock would take everything. And that final destruction would be the most brutal and painful of all. He wondered who it would take first. He recalled the hushed whispers of his infinite magic and decided he didn’t want to know the answer.

Would the gods make them watch as they claimed Elena’s soul? Would he even have the chance, the ability, to try to help her, as he had promised Gavin? This answer he knew.

Stop.

Stop.

“Stop.”

Dorian heard the words and, for a heartbeat, did not recognize the speaker.

Until a man appeared from one of those impossible-yet-possible doorways. A man who looked of flesh and blood, as they were, and yet shimmered at his edges.

His father.

His father stood there—the man he had last seen on a glass castle bridge, and yet not.

There was kindness on his face. Humanity.

And sorrow. Such terrible, pained sorrow.

Dorian’s magic faltered.

Even Aelin’s magic slowed in surprise, the torrent thinning to a trickle, a steady and agonizing drain.

“Stop,” the man breathed, staggering toward them, glancing at the ribbon of power, blinding and pure, feeding the Lock’s formation.

Aelin said, “This cannot be stopped.”

His father shook his head. “I know. What has begun can’t be halted.”

His father.

“No,” Dorian said. “No, you cannot be here.”

The man only looked down—to Dorian’s side. To where a sword might be.

“Did you not summon me?”

Damaris. He had been wearing Damaris within that ring of Wyrdmarks. In their world, their existence, he still did.

The sword, the unnamed god it served, apparently thought he had one truth left to face. One more truth, before his end.

“No,” Dorian repeated. It was all he could think to say as he looked upon him, the man who had done such terrible things to all of them.

His father lifted his hands in supplication. “My boy,” he only breathed.

Dorian had nothing to say to him. Hated that this man was here at the end and beginning.

Yet his father looked to Aelin. “Let me do this. Let me finish this.”

“What?” The word snapped from Dorian.

“You were not chosen,” Aelin said, though the coldness in her voice faltered.

“Nameless is my price,” the king said.

Aelin went still. Dorian wished he knew what she was thinking.

“Nameless is my price,” his father repeated. The warning of an ancient witch, the damning words written on the back of the Amulet of Orynth. “For the bastard-born mark you bear, you are Nameless, yet am I not so as well?” He glanced between them, his eyes wide. “What is my name?”

“This is ridiculous,” Dorian said through his teeth. “Your name is—”

But where there should have been a name, only an empty hole existed.

“You …,” Aelin breathed. “Your name is … How is it that you don’t have one? That we don’t know it?”

Dorian’s rage slipped. And the agony of having his magic, his soul, shredded from him, became secondary as his father said, “Erawan took it. Wiped it from history, from memory. An ancient, terrible spell, so powerful it could only be used once. All so I might be his most faithful servant. Even I do not know my name, not anymore. I lost it.”

“Nameless is my price,” Aelin murmured.

Dorian looked then. At the man who had been his father. Truly looked at him.

“My boy,” his father whispered again. And it was love—love and pride and sorrow that shone in his face. 

His father, who had been possessed as he had, who had tried to save them in his own way and failed. His father, who had everything taken from him, but had never bowed to Erawan—not entirely. “I want to hate you,” Dorian said, his voice breaking.

“I know,” his father said.

“You destroyed everything.” He couldn’t stop his tears. Aelin’s hand only tightened in his. She was always there. She was still here, staring at the face of his father.

Aelin is here. Even with the anguish tearing through both of them, she remains to face his father, he thought, the only one who hates the ex-King of Adarlan more than Dorian himself.

“I am sorry,” his father breathed. “I am sorry for all of it, Dorian.”

And even the way his father said his name—he had never heard him speak it like that.

Dismiss him. Throw him into some hell-world. That’s what he should do.

And yet Dorian knew for whom he had really brought down Morath. For whom he’d buried that room of collars, the hateful tomb around them.

“I’m sorry,” his father said again.

He did not need Damaris to tell him the words were true.

“Let me pay this debt,” his father said, stepping closer. “Let me pay this, do this. Does Mala’s blood not flow through my veins as well?”

“You don’t have magic—not like we do,” Aelin said, her eyes sorrowful.

His father met Aelin’s stare. “I have enough—just enough in my blood. To help.”

Dorian glanced over his shoulder, toward the archway that opened to Erilea. To their kingdoms.

To home. “Then let him,” he said, though the words did not come out with the iciness he wished—only heaviness and exhaustion. And a sliver of hope. Hope for survival.

Aelin said softly to his father, “I had planned to before it got to the end.”

“Then you will not be alone now,” his father replied. Then the man smiled at him—a vision of the king, the father, he might have been. Had always been, despite what had befallen him. “I am grateful—that I got to see you again. One last time.”

Aelin knew what she had to do. Who she _ had _ to save. Else she would never be able to forgive herself.

Dorian had no words, couldn’t find them. Not as Aelin turned to him, tears sliding down her face as she said, “One of us has to rule.”

Before Dorian could understand, before he could realize the agreement she’d just made, Aelin ripped her hand from his.

And shoved him through that gateway behind them, back into their own world.

Roaring, Dorian fell.

As the Wyrdgate’s misty realm vanished, Dorian saw Aelin take his father’s hand. For a millisecond, he appreciated the irony. For a millisecond, his heart processed what her words meant. The implication of what would’ve happened had they survived. 

The night passed, the stars wheeling over this hateful, cold place.

And then Dorian arched, gulping down air—and collapsed to his knees.

Aelin remained where she was. Remained standing and simply let go of Dorian’s hand.

“No,” Dorian rasped, scrambling toward her, trying to grip her hand again, to join her.

But the wound on Aelin’s hand had sealed.

_ One of us has to rule _ .

A merging of kingdoms, that was the unspoken plan, the plan that was destroyed before it was ever even spoken.

The proclamation of love didn’t mean anything now. It hovered between their bodies, separated by both centimeters and endless, incomprehensible distance.

And all the King of Adarlan felt was rage. Rage and hopelessness and heartbreak.

**Author's Note:**

> i have so many regrets


End file.
